Freeserve and Windows XP (Freeserve)

Member Name: emma76

Product:	Freeserve
Date:	19/11/01 (137 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fixed rate internet use

Disadvantages: Hard to set up on Windows XP

We only joined Freeserve 2 days ago, not much time to develop an opinion on them you may be thinking, but I'd like to anyway. We had an internet set top box which was OK until we (mainly me) started using it a lot and ended up with a £180 phone bil compared to our usual average of about £45! So we got the PC and decided on Freeserve, no particular reason, to be our ISP.


The first problem we had was that they would not accept my debit card in the online registration form, so I had to ask a friend to use hers for us. Once that was done, we tried to connect to the internet lots of times and 9 times out of 10, the line was engaged and connection was unsuccessful. The remaining 1 time out 10, I was given the 'username or password is invalid' message. This went on continuously for about 3 hours as I did not want to be one of 'those people' that I have read about in various other opinions that do not try to sort it out themselves and immediately resort to the premium rate helplines! BUT in the end I had to do it, reluctantly!


The man on the other end of the phone was extremely helpful and want through al of the problems quickly and efficiently without dithering, knowing that the phonecall is costing me 50 pence per minute. I must admit that even though the call cost me about £5.50 (yes, I timed it!) I was impressed with the service and hopefully will never need to use it again.


What was the problem? Well, apparently, the brand new updated Freeserve CD is not entirely compatible with Windows XP (which is what I have) and would not respond to the Freeserve Anytime phone number that was trying to be dialled. A lot of changes had to made, which was a pain as our phone is not near the PC and I had to shout instructions to my partner as the helpline man told me them! Hopefully Freeserve will bring out a new updated CD so that everyone else with Windows XP will not encounter such problems.

Summary: